Monte Canfield broke news of JFK's shooting on Capitol Hill

On Nov. 22, 1963, Monte Canfield was a low-level civil servant working for the federal Bureau of the Budget in an office building a short distance from the White House.

Jon Baker TimesReporter.com staff writer @jbakerTR

On Nov. 22, 1963, Monte Canfield was a low-level civil servant working for the federal Bureau of the Budget in an office building a short distance from the White House. It was a quiet time for the bureau, since the fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

"After the big rush of spring and summer, there is a lull until Christmas," Canfield, 74, of Newcomerstown, recalled recently. "It's the slowest time for the budget office."

Even so, he and the three other people in his cramped office still worked 50 to 70 hours per week.

On Nov. 22, his co-workers were taking a late lunch. Someone had to stay in the office to answer the phone, and it was Canfield's job that day. He had the radio on, listening to music in the background.

Suddenly, an announcer cut into the broadcast, announcing that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.

"My heart leapt in my throat," Canfield said.

A native of Kansas, Canfield was 23 years old at the time. He had been in Washington, D.C., since July after a short stint working for Nelson Rockefeller, a liberal Republican who was governor of New York.

Canfield's office was in the Old Executive Office Building, on the same floor as that of Vice President Lyndon Johnson. Canfield was in the natural resources division of the Bureau of the Budget, reviewing budgets of the Bureau of Land Management.

Kennedy didn't know who Canfield was, but they had shaken hands on more than one occasion. "I was the lowest of the low," Canfield said. "I was only 23 years old, but he didn't treat you that way."

After hearing the news of the shooting, Canfield ran down the hall to the office of the director of his division to tell someone the news, but the office was empty. He ran the length of building — a structure a block and a half long — looking for someone to share the news with.

Finally, he ran upstairs and into the budget director's office. The front office was empty. Canfield could hear voices coming from a nearby conference room.

"I pushed open the doors to the conference room," he said. "I was out of breath. I said, 'The president has been shot.'"

The others in the room were skeptical of the news. Elmer Statts, the deputy director of the budget bureau, told Canfield, "That is the sickest joke you could say."

He told them he wasn't joking and suggested they turn on the television. They did, tuning the TV to listen to CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite.

The men in the room invited Canfield to stay.

They listened to the news all afternoon. "Little by little, the room filled up with division directors and people from the vice president's office," he said.

After a couple of hours, Cronkite announced that JFK was dead. The people in the room — mostly men — reacted to the news with "utter shock," Canfield said.

"There was total stunned silence. You could hear those deep sighing sobs. These great men were trying to be stoic and macho, with tears pouring down their faces — mine included.

"It was like the world had fallen apart. That feeling continued for weeks."

The people in the bureau were civil servants, responsible to the public not the party in power. "Their reaction was stronger because it really felt like Camelot," Canfield said.

Camelot — the home of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table — was the term used to described the Kennedy family's time in the White House.

Canfield worked for the federal government until 1978, except for a short stint with the Ford Foundation in the early 1970s. He then went into private industry.

He switched careers in 1991, entering a seminary to become a minister. Canfield eventually moved to Tuscarawas County, where he served churches in Port Washington, Gnadenhutten and Baltic before retiring.

Canfield — describing himself as "a small town country boy at heart" — said he prefers the pace of life in Newcomerstown to that of Washington, D.C. And as for his days working for the federal government, "I don't think about them much."

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